1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to security door assemblies and particularly to solid stile and rail doors and solid core wood doors used as a component in a door assembly including a door frame, adjacent vertical horizontally spaced structural wall support members to which the door frame is attached, security reinforced hinges for pivotally mounting the door on the door frame, ad a lock assembly including a security reinforced face plate mounted in the door edge and cooperating with a security reinforced strike plate mounted on the strike jam of the door frame.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is believed that the prior art relating to this invention resides in Class 292. A search of this class has revealed the existance of the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,688,626; 1,762,326; 1,924,806; 3,152,825; 3,159,416; and 4,065,162.
It is not generally known that a burglar can break into most homes with just one swift kick. In most instances, such kicks are delivered to an exterior entry door adjacent the lock assembly. Since most such doors are fabricated from soft wood, as are the strike and hinge jambs, they are not constructed to withstand such force. The bolt of the lock assembly, or the door, or the strike jamb split and break apart and thus give access to the premises. Accordingly, it is one of the objects of this invention to provide a door assembly reinforced in such a way that it resists forced entry by this modus operandi.
In a special report dated October 1984, Consumer Reports states that more than 5 million homes will be burglarized in the United States in that year, with something like 4 million dollars worth of property stolen. Continuing, the report points out that many insurance companies offer discounts on homeowner's insurance policies according to which measures are taken to minimize the likelihood of a home being burglarized.
Statistics collected from the San Jose, California Police Department, the City of San Jose being a city of approximately 650,000 people, indicate that the most likely month that a home will be burglarized is January, the most likely day of the week for burglaries is Friday, and the most likely four hour block of time is between 12 noon and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. From these statistics, it is apparent that window entry occurred in 45.4% of the entries, while door entry occurred in 38.3% of the entries. The location of the point of entry that appears to be most prevalent is the rear of the house, at 37.3% of the entries, with the front of the house accounting for 31.3% of the entries, and the side of the house accounting for 21.6% of the entries. Entries related specifically to doors, either front door or rear door, amounted to 17.7% for the front door, and 13.8% for a rear door.
From these figures, it is apparent that burglarizing of residences, whether they be homes, apartments, mobile homes, condominiums, duplexes or other types of premises, is very prevalent at least in San Jose, California, and from these figures it is presumed that such forced entries are just as prevalent in other comparable metropolitan areas. In the San Jose area, 72.6% of the entries occurred in houses. Only 14.3% occurred in apartments, with the remainder of the entries being spread between the other types of premises.
There are three general areas that may be pinpointed as weaknesses in a door assembly. One such area is the strike jamb at the strike plate. Most conventional door frames are prefabricated in mills from various softwoods. Such softwoods are susceptible to bending and splitting and do not provide a very secure structure to which to fasten the door hardware. For instance, the conventional strike plate used on most conventional door assemblies constitutes nothing more than a flat plate rarely more than 1/16" in thickness, and having a large aperture to receive the door latch or dead bolt. This flat plate is most usually morticed into the softwood strike jamb of the frame no more than the thickness of the plate, and is secured in position by two relatively short, approximately 1/2" wood screws that penetrate only the soft wood of the strike jamb. Because in most instances the strike plate is attached to the strike jamb adjacent the inside edge of the jamb, and because the recess in the jamb that receives the bolt further weakens the jamb, one strong kick on the door adjacent the lock assembly, is usually enough to split the wood from which the strike jamb is formed, or strip the thin metal plate and the screws from the softwood strike jamb. Accordingly, it is an important object of this invention to provide a system of hardware for a door assembly that resists forced entry by the imposition of kicks or other methods of battering to gain unauthorized entry.
The strike plate of most conventional door assemblies is recessed into the softwood strike jamb of the door frame, such strike plates nominally being approximately 1/16" in thickness. Accordingly, another object of the present invention is to replace such conventional relatively thin and fragile strike plates with a strike plate incorporating reinforcing bosses projecting from the back side thereof that are embedded in the strike jamb and are secured not only to the strike jamb but also to the much stronger structural wall support members to which the door frame is attached.
A still further object is to provide easily fabricated, easily installed door hardware, such as a strike plate that has been reinforced by thickening the area immediately surrounding the screw fastener to allow the screw head, although angled, to be flush with the face of the strike plate.
Still another object of the invention in connection with the application of a reinforced strike plate is the provision of elongated screw fasteners to support the strike plate, the screw fasteners being driven into and through the strike jamb and into the much stronger structural wall support members behind the strike jamb at an angle other than 90.degree., and preferably in a direction that will tend to impose a tensile force on the screws when unauthorized entry force is applied to the strike plate, thus minimizing the shearing force or bending force applied to the screw fasteners of conventional strike plates.
A second area of weakness is the conventional "bored" lock assembly of a conventional door, usually referred to as "bored" locks and "key-in-knob" locks and fitted to the door in two intersecting holes, one of which is bored in the door stile from one face through the other along an axis that is perpendicular to the door face and spaced approximately 23/8" from the edge of the door. The second hole is bored into the edge of the door along an axis that is perpendicular to the axis of the first bored hole so that it extends diametrically of the first bore. This second bore receives the latch or dead bolt and is approximately 7/8" in diameter. It will thus be seen that the door edge portion that lies immediately adjacent the intersection of the two bores, extending between the first bore and the door edge and overlying the second bore, constitutes an extremely weak area in the door itself and is not strengthened by the usually thin and fragile face plate that is recessed into the edge of the door, and which provides an aperture for slidable bearing of the latch or bolt as it moves from an unlocked to a locked position. In fact, such conventional face plates contribute to the rupturability of this area of door. Accordingly, another object of the present invention is to provide a reinforced door-edge face plate for a lock assembly, the reinforced door-edge face plate adapted to be mortised into the door edge and having reinforcing bosses having a thickness at least three times the thickness of the remainder of the face plate, with the face plate and reinforcement bosses being secured to the lock stile of the door with substantially longer screw fasteners driven into the door edge at an angle other than 90.degree. to the door edge so as to impose a compressive force on the material of the door.
Another object of the invention is to provide a reinforced door-edge plate as the face plate of a door lock assembly, whether the look assembly be of the cylinder, tubular or mortised type, and which is secured to the door stile by extraordinarily long screw fasteners that extend into the door stile at angles other than 90.degree. to the face plate so as to reinforce the door stile against splitting.
The area of the door assembly immediately surrounding conventional hinge installations is the third weak area and is also susceptible to intrusion by strong kicks. The reason for this is that most conventional hinge jambs and doors are constructed from softwood, and the wood screws that are utilized to attach the hinge leafs to the door and to the hinge jamb are relatively short, generally no more than 3/4" or 1", and penetrate only the softwood frame member from which the jamb is constructed. Accordingly, another object of the invention is the provision of means associated with one or more of the hinges, that will resist forces imposed on the door that would tend to split the frame or to bend or shear the screws with which the hinges are attached to the hinge jamb.
In connection with the reinforcement of the hinge area, a more specific object of this invention is the embedding of a reinforcement boss mortised into the hinge jamb, underlying the associated leaf of the hinge and independently secured to the underlying hinge jamb and to the wall support member behind the hinge jamb by an elongated wood screw that penetrates these structural members at an angle other than 90.degree., with the associated leaf of the hinge being detachably secured to the reinforcement boss by a machine screw.
One of the problems inherrent in the mounting of door hardware is the proper placement of the hardware in relation to the door edge, the strike jamb and the hinge jamb. The problem arises because holes and recesses must be bored or mortised into these supporting members to receive the hardware. The custom in the industry is to provide a paper or card stock template which, when properly positioned and held on the door or jamb, permits marking of the center point of holes to be bored. The difficulty with such templates is that they must be folded by the installer, who is frequently not mechanically inclined, or it slips out of position prior to marking, thus resulting in improper placement of the holes. Accordingly, a still further object of the invention is the provision of reinforced face and strike plates and a hinge reinforcement boss that provides the means for punching a depression in the door edge or jamb at the appropriate location to mark the location where the holes should be bored.
The invention possesses other objects and features of advantage, some of which, with the foregoing, will be apparent from the following description and the drawings. It is to be understood however that the invention is not limited to the embodiment illustrated and described since it may be embodied in various forms within the scope of the appended claims.